What a Contrast!

Monday, October 2, 2017

It is so ironic that on the day we hear about the violence and national tragedy in Las Vegas, we arrived at the International Peace Garden.  What a contrast.

We are in Dunseith, North Dakota, right on the border of Canada, and the entrance to the International Peace Garden.  We are actually staying inside the Peace Garden at the campground in the park. 

Along the way, we were struck by the contrast of the changing leaves against the sky and clouds, quite a spectacular sight, which created a beautiful and peaceful backdrop.

Also, quite a contrast, was the temperature.  We were in 90+ degree temps last week, and this morning woke up to 42 degrees.  The sun came out and warmed things up, but the blowing wind kept the air quite cool.  This is probably an indication of the weather we will be facing for the next few weeks.

Dunseith is a small town, (in the middle of nowhere) and, in addition to being the entrance to the International Peace Garden, is the gateway to the Turtle Mountains, marked by a turtle made of wheels…I wonder who figured out how to make a turtle out of wheels?

The group we will be traveling with is Fantasy RV Tours, and when we arrived at the campground, we were greeted by our Fantasy Ambassadors who applied a decal to our rig to identify us as part of the group. We are #9, and are also “Lifetime” members, because we have taken so many trips with the group!  There will be 16 rigs on the trip, which includes the Wagon Master (the host couple and leader) and the Tail Gunners (the couple that follows at the end).  It turns out we know several people on the trip.  The tail gunners (Chuck and Phyllis from Florida) are a couple from our Alaska trip 5 years ago.  Some racing buddies from Indy (Clayton and Diane) are on the trip, and we were pleasantly surprised to discover that a couple from our Maritimes group (Stan and Bev from Washington) are also on this trip.  It truly is a small world!

We are looking forward to meeting more of the group tomorrow, and compare and contrast this experience to others. 

PS.  It is so peaceful here, that there is no cellphone service.  I’m sitting in the interpretive center to catch a wi-fi signal to post the blog!  I was able to update my phone and have 101 emails!!  Yikes, didn’t realize how much I miss connectivity.